Kleeneze

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Discussion

D1bram

Original Poster:

1,500 posts

170 months

Friday 30th April 2010
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Just after anyones experienced opinion of kleeneze and their 'opportunity'.

We all have our preformed and possibly prejudiced opinions (myself including), but I was wondering if anyone had any actual experience; good or bad.

Reasoning behind this is the wife only works part time (3days per week), and whilst she is on a reasonable rate for the work she does more money is always a good thing and she does have quite a bit of spare time on her hands.

We had a flyer through the door recently and she's interested in taking this up; I would also probably lend a hand too of a weekend as there are times I do nothing particularly productive!

Obviously, I'm a little sceptical, BUT I can see the logic behind it and a quick search on t'internet shows a lot of people doing ok at this kind of thing.

We don't expect to make millions over night on this, but in the long term an extra £1k/month on our income would put us in a very comfortable position.

Thanks in advance.

singlecoil

33,317 posts

245 months

Saturday 1st May 2010
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1K a month, approx £250 per week. What might the average sale be? £20? Let's be optimisitic and say £25. Now there's the question of how much she would have to pay for the stuff she sells. I don't know how much the GP at the lowest level of Kleeneze is but I think 50% is probably optimistic. But let's say 50%. That would mean 20 sales each and every week. Then more sales would be needed to cover costs such as petrol (I believe you have to deliver the stuff as well as go and drop the leaflets, and go back for the sale).

It doesn't look very promising. I often wonder with these schemes whether the people promoting them know that most of the hopefuls joining up are only going to stick it out for a few months, and that such sales as they do get will come from their friends and relatives who are trying to help them get a start. From what I remember Kleeneze stuff is quite expensive too.

From what I gather the modern way for people who have some time on their hands to make some money is buying and selling on ebay. Not a guaranteed success but then neither is Kleeneze.

Edited by singlecoil on Saturday 1st May 08:58

spikeyhead

17,225 posts

196 months

Saturday 1st May 2010
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I know one bloke that does this. His doctor told him to walk a lot more, so instead of just walking he took up a kleenese round or similar. Whilst it pays for his time as he walks, it doesn't do a great deal more.

ShadownINja

76,253 posts

281 months

Saturday 1st May 2010
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spikeyhead said:
I know one bloke that does this. His doctor told him to walk a lot more, so instead of just walking he took up a kleenese round or similar. Whilst it pays for his time as he walks, it doesn't do a great deal more.
That's a good idea!

Kleeneze can work but you don't want to be near the bottom of the pyramid er MLM model. hehe

Apparently, MLM is not the same as a pyramid scheme. rofl Personally, I have no problems with pyramid schemes (I don't see it as a scam - it's a genuine business model and not dissimilar to normal distribution methods... just a bit longer) but I wish they'd stop trying to make it out to be anything other than that. Go on, someone, explain MLM and make it not sound like a pyramid scheme.

Edited by ShadownINja on Saturday 1st May 13:27

Puggit

48,355 posts

247 months

Sunday 2nd May 2010
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The Kleeneze sales rep who turns up in our street drives the most dilapidated piece of sh!t on the road. Plastered with stickers about earning £x per year.

That tells me all I need to know!

greygoose

8,225 posts

194 months

Monday 3rd May 2010
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Years ago I used to do Betterware selling when I was unemployed, presumably Kleeneze is a similar model, then you got 20% of what you sold as your share. It's a good way of getting out of the house for an hour or two a day but expecting to sell £5,000 worth of gear a month is a trifle optimistic unless you have a huge area to distribute in and no competition from other brands.

Smart Mart

11,773 posts

214 months

Tuesday 4th May 2010
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I've looked into it a couple of times over the years and worked for Betterware, Avon and Everyday Essentials in the past.

The one major issue with Kleeneze is that there are no areas as such. I could carefully choose a street that would suit my circumstances, i.e. close to my house, decent chance of good orders etc and canvass the area too. All sounds good but there's nothing stopping the next person to join in my area doing exactly the same on my patch. Avon keep boundaries for their distributors but Kleeneze don't bother and it's a nightmare.

The OP's missus might be better delivering free papers. I deliver 700 a week which takes about five hours and I get 10p a paper on average - that's about £14 an hour. I would say that it keeps me fit as well but it just gives me an appetite really... scratchchin

Yelly

306 posts

167 months

Wednesday 5th May 2010
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I did Kleeneze for a while. The catalogues are expensive, and damage easily. I ended up LOSING money doing Kleeneze.

ETA the products are expensive, too.

Edited by Yelly on Wednesday 5th May 09:10

Matt Black

420 posts

169 months

Wednesday 5th May 2010
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Kleeneze is just over priced st IMHO, although I do occasionally buy stuff from it just so the wee old guy who does it gets something for all his hard work.

ShadownINja

76,253 posts

281 months

Wednesday 5th May 2010
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Yelly said:
I did Kleeneze for a while. The catalogues are expensive, and damage easily. I ended up LOSING money doing Kleeneze.

ETA the products are expensive, too.

Edited by Yelly on Wednesday 5th May 09:10
You had to pay for the catalogues??? fkers.

bogie

16,344 posts

271 months

Wednesday 5th May 2010
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I know people that are retired in their 50s, just on the basis of their Kleeneze and Amway MLM empires theyve built ....I had a go myself 20 years ago...

its like any other type of employment, it is what you make of it, and its not an easy path to lots of money

but the concept works, and if you work yourself to death for 10 or 20 years at it, and get good at it, you will likely suceed at making a good living

..but isnt that the same as any career/occupation you choose?

there are lots of other ways of making a few quid, these MLMs are not easy, nor straightforward, and require lots more effort in for many years before the bigger rewards come

personally, if I just wanted to earn some extra cash each week, Id just sell my time per hour for minimum wage as a cleaner...keep it simple and hassle free wink

D1bram

Original Poster:

1,500 posts

170 months

Monday 10th May 2010
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Thanks for the replies folks, basically echoing a lot of our concerns with this scheme there.

To be clear though, I think it is fairly obvious that to make decent money you would need to sell the scheme on and become part of the pyramid - this tbh is not really for us, we are not the type to try and recruit all and sundry or drive round with tacky posters in the car etc...

I can see how it could work though, but it's not for us.

This though;

Smart Mart said:
The OP's missus might be better delivering free papers. I deliver 700 a week which takes about five hours and I get 10p a paper on average - that's about £14 an hour. I would say that it keeps me fit as well but it just gives me an appetite really... scratchchin
Is similar to what she originally fancied doing, and infact we have done similar before delivering Ikea and yellow pages etc.

My Dad retired early a few years back, and now has several regular rounds with various publications and makes a good pension top up income with it.

I picked a couple of rounds up off him a few years back and me and the wife spent the odd weekend on it. It was in the summer and fairly enjoyable 'none brain' work, we went out early saturday and sunday mornings, so it was nice and quiet and we were finished before lunchtime genrally. And working probably 10 hours each over the weekend made around £300 (less a little bit of fuel).

Unfortunately we now live 100miles away, so beyond any of my Dads contacts for this kind of work.

The wife has also considered eBaying, and again has done this in the past with Equine supplies (a subject on which she is knowledgable). Again though, she used to have good contacts where we used to live so got to know about liquidation sales etc...

I think we need to put in a bit of footwork and just go with one of the above tbh.

It's just a stop gap, as long term I want to set up on my own, a venture which would also include her, but in the meantime as I say a bit of extra income will improve our standard of living no end.

Nolar Dog

8,786 posts

194 months

Monday 10th May 2010
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Dog walking. She should take up dog walking.

D1bram

Original Poster:

1,500 posts

170 months

Monday 10th May 2010
quotequote all
Funny enough she has a friend who does that, and has an established business. Her friend has previously offered use of her business name to set up in our area (as she herself does not cover quite that far).

The wife is very into animals and has an interest in dogs in particular.

Our concern though is people expect the service every day of the week, and the 2 days a week she is not in work just wouldn't be good enough.

We have considered her giving up her job altogether to set up (going off what her friend earns - and believe me she does not maximise the potential), but it is a huge risk.

So basically we have been considering alsorts, and are open to new suggestions, everything from a few hours home working to a complete new career she would consider.

zs

3,140 posts

236 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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Tried Kleeneze: did it for 2 wks 10yrs ago. Made £50 for 6hrs/day. Maybe persevere for longer & earnings go up? Not for me

spikeyhead

17,225 posts

196 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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zs said:
Tried Kleeneze: did it for 2 wks 10yrs ago. Made £50 for 6hrs/day. Maybe persevere for longer & earnings go up? Not for me
If that's £50 per day and not for the entire two weeks it's well above minimum wage. Whilst it would never make you rich it would top up a pension quite well for someone willing to put in three days a week of effort.

Yelly

306 posts

167 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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spikeyhead said:
zs said:
Tried Kleeneze: did it for 2 wks 10yrs ago. Made £50 for 6hrs/day. Maybe persevere for longer & earnings go up? Not for me
If that's £50 per day and not for the entire two weeks it's well above minimum wage. Whilst it would never make you rich it would top up a pension quite well for someone willing to put in three days a week of effort.
It won't be per day, speaking from experience. It will have been for the 2 weeks.

tank slapper

7,949 posts

282 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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ShadownINja said:
Go on, someone, explain MLM and make it not sound like a pyramid scheme.
The main difference is that a pyramid scheme exists largely to recruit new members, and pretty much all the income is from that and are basically fraudulent, whereas MLM schemes do actually exist to sell products (ie Kleneze/Betterware types). Not to mention that pyramid schemes are actually illegal in this country. The difficulty comes in telling the legitimate companies apart from pyramid schemes masquerading as legitimate companies.

I wouldn't recommend anyone get involved with a MLM company without first doing some serious research into the reputability of the company, the viability of the products, and the state of the market (which may well already be saturated, especially if there are no restrictions on the number of agents or areas they can operate in).

Jasandjules

69,825 posts

228 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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You have to pay, quite a lot, for the catalogues. So each time someone doesn't hand one back, that's 50p gone. Then IIRC they have summer, winter and whatever else brochures, so you have to buy the newer ones as well. It takes a LOT of time and you get very little out of it.

Essentially IF you got into it 10-20 years ago (whenever it started) then you could well make lots of money based on the pyramid scheme, but now I don't think you have a hope in hell.

speedchick

5,173 posts

221 months

Wednesday 26th May 2010
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I did it for a couple of years a few years back, I was looking for around £60 a week from it, and actually did that quite a lot, by the time I gave it up, I had a customer base of 450 customers, and had seen off 3 other distributors (my customers were fiercly loyal to me)

I didn't do anything with regard to the team building, I was happy just going out delivering and collecting catalogues. Once you have started to build your customer base, you find that catalogue losses reduce dramatically.

Basically I started off by dropping to every house in a particular street/area, I did each area every 5 weeks, and started to stop doing the houses where people said they weren't interested or where they weren't even looking at the catalogues.

I used to replace my catalogues 3 times a year, usually Januaury, then summer, and then in time for Christmas. Every time I replaced the catalogues, I used the old ones to blanket drop the areas again, this generally brought me in a few more customers, and if I didn't get the catalogues back, then it wasn't my recycling bag they went in wink

It's not for everyone, it takes a lot of hard work and time to build it up, you have to treat it like a new business, and you are only going to get out what you put in.

Wet and cold days are the worst, trying to dry (or defrost) catalogues on radiators, having to go out in the cold to deliver the orders, but I enjoyed it, and I did it all by foot so it kept me fit too.

Obviously, I have been out of it a couple of years, so I don't know what it's like now.